This 21 year old spends all his time after college building his startup
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Ram Harsha does not waste his time after college hours. Relentlessly at work trying to build his own startup after college, he’s figured how get the most out of the SV.CO programme. Read more to learn how he’s doing it
Having spent his Thursday evening listening to the Arun Purushothaman, founder of Sieve Inc. talking about acquiring first customers, Harsha was quick to reply back with his thoughts on how the session went. Sanjay Vijayakumar, founder of SV.CO chipped in with his comments.
Read the full conversation below
Sanjay Vijayakumar went on to say;
“I’m happy to see the intensity you are bringing to your learning experience. Reminds me of how I was at your age; grabbing every opportunity to satisfy my curiosity and learn new things; the only difference is that I was more naturally comfortable with men, as you are with machines.
I balanced my weakness by finding team-mates, like Vishnu and others, who had skills that compensated for where I was really weak.
To be successful as a founder you need to have a team that complements you. And as a leader your job is to nurture and develop this team, to guide and encourage your teammates.
Your learning and your development as a person has nothing to do with age, but has everything to do with the intensity of your efforts.
Don’t burn out by going too fast, take breaks; it’s the only way to tap into your Quantum Creativity.
Self-reflect every day to improve your self-Awareness; it will give you the power to see the future clearly. And then, with the skills and knowledge you gain, you can easily engineer the right product for that future.
Don’t be too attached to technology. Tech not your business; tech is only an enabler to your business. Your business is selling something — a product or a service — that people want, and technology is a tool to build that something.
Building a Startup: The Elon Musk way vs. The everyday approach
There are only two good ways to know what people want in that ‘something’.
The first is to ask them (99% successful founders in world listen to their customers).
The second is to create a completely new reality and convince them that it is what they need; which is what visionaries such as Steve Jobs and Elon Musk have done. Musk does not ask you if want to go to Mars; he simply says it must be a goal for humanity, and leads the way.
To do the first you need to talk to your customers; to do the second you need to raise your self-awareness to levels that allow you to envision new realities and future.
My recommendation to you and to everyone else is to start with Step 1 and keep building up to Step 2 through continuous self-reflection. Each day, look back on how you went through the day; what your emotions and your responses were. Learn to be an active observer; that quality will unlock treasures in the mind and give you the powers to imagine and build brave new futures.
Good luck!”
Harsha and his co-founder meet Sanjay Vijayakumar at SV.CO Alpha launch at Freshdesk.
You might also want to read “Life lessons by Girish Mathrubootham to SV.CO Startups”
